Ad Campaigns
J Walter Thompson creates #LostVotes campaign for Times of India
MUMBAI: J Walter Thompson has conceptualised and created a nationwide campaign ‘Lost Votes’, which calls for policy and electoral reforms to bring in the vote of Indian migrants, for Times of India (TOI).
Elaborating the idea behind the campaign, JWT mentioned in a statement that considering today’s India’s countless population is on the move for work or education, or marriage, the right to vote should also move along just like the mobile phone numbers, PAN and Aadhar details, and bank accounts. The basic concept is to turn these lost votes into votes that count because they can shape the destiny of our nation.
Commenting on the campaign, TOI brand director Sanjeev Bhargava said, “We are the largest democracy in the world. But are we the most robust? To strengthen our democracy, it is important that the right to vote and the facility to vote both be made available to the entire voting population.”
J Walter Thompson chief creative officer Senthil Kumar said, “The idea of the film is to evoke the voice of the lost vote. A voice that amplifies the angst and echoes the emotion of over 20 crore Indians losing their vote. To play the voice of the lost votes on loud speakers and yet feel the voice being drowned by the distance, lost in the middle class multitudes out there. Losing your right to vote is like that fading homing signal. It’s like missing the last train home and losing the hope of making a difference in your hometown from your distant work station. Mera haq kahin pe kho gaya.”
J Walter Thompson national creative director Sambit Mohanty added, “When we started working on the ‘Lost Votes’ campaign, I knew the film had to be poignant and soul-stirring. It needed to capture that ineffable feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. One who has to deal with the pain of not just losing touch with his roots but also not mattering in the larger scheme of things, because he/she is unable to vote (despite having the right to.) Whether you’re a face in the crowd or the crowd itself, nobody is immune from this pain. The ‘Lost’ poster-frame is meant to be symbolic of this feeling of becoming insignificant.”
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
